McDonald's first used the name “McDonaldland” for its fictional advertising world in 1971.
McDonaldland was created as a colorful setting for McDonald's characters and promotions. The campaign presented the restaurant's brand through a fantasy landscape populated by figures such as Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese.
The fictional world helped connect separate advertisements into a recognizable universe. Rather than presenting each commercial as an isolated sales message, McDonald's could reuse characters, locations, and visual ideas across television, packaging, and restaurant promotions.
McDonaldland is sometimes dated only by the introductions of individual characters, but the setting itself is identified with the 1971 campaign. Its best-known figures did not all appear at exactly the same time, so a character's debut year is not automatically the year McDonaldland began.